Staying Sane
by summerlinde
Summary: Zuko has nightmares about turning into his father. AU in that I wrote it pre-Korra and made up my own set of his kids.


Zuko's wife woke with a start as her husband rocketed upright in the moonlight beside her, eyes wild under his shaggy hair. Almost before she could make sense of what was going on, he slid out from under the covers and dashed through the door, his feet quiet on the floor from years of training. Something was wrong! Her heart pounded violently in her chest.

What was it? She listened carefully, trying to figure out what might have woken Zuko up. But all she could hear were her husband's swift footsteps, followed by the soft creak of the nursery door down the hall, and a few barely-audible coughs from the guard at the doorway to this wing of the palace. The quiet calmed her racing heart, but she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep until she made sure everything was as peaceful as it sounded.

Shoving the pile of covers over onto Zuko's side of the bed, she put one hand on the bed to steady herself as she heaved her body up to stand on the floor. Resting one hand on her very pregnant stomach, she took a deep breath and followed Zuko.

Waddling down the hall to the nursery, she pushed the half-opened door gently, walking in as quietly as she could. Which, with several extra pounds of baby inside her, was not so quietly. Zuko turned toward her, and she noticed absent-mindedly that his hair was getting long again – long enough to use a trim, if she could just remember to do it sometime when it wasn't the middle of the night.

He was leaning on the walls of the twins' crib, arms so tense that every muscle stood out in detail. His knuckles were white around the top bar, bones standing out starkly as he squeezed against it. As she watched, he turned back to peer into the crib again, dark hair shadowing the deep red burn scar around his eye. He looked angry, but she could tell he wasn't. She moved quietly behind him, wrapping her arms around his stomach and resting her cheek against the back of his shoulder as she gazed into the crib with him. She could feel him shaking, quivering in her arms as he reached up to put a hand on hers.

"Baby, what's wrong?" she asked quietly.

"Nothing," he whispered back.

"Mmm-hmm," she muttered, skeptically.

"They're so perfect," he murmured, looking over his shoulder at her for a moment.

They were. Takayoshi and Kazuno were two and a half. Awake, they were energetic, stubborn, lively, and occasionally sweet. They'd gone from walking to running and liked flaunting their new skill, they climbed the furniture and people around them, they clambered from one crib to the other after bedtime instead of going to sleep, and they were always asking questions. But asleep in a pile of stuffed platypusbears and turtleducks dragged from one crib into the other so they could play with them, the twins were nothing short of perfect.

Their feathery dark hair fell against smooth, soft baby skin, and their faces were peaceful, half-smiles showing that they, at least, were having good dreams. Kazuno was wrapped around one of their larger toys, a big stuffed dragon that served well enough as a pillow, and Taka was sprawled out beside her, limbs splayed in all directions, with his tiny arm wrapped around his sister's ankle.

Gradually, she felt Zuko calm down. The shaking stopped, his muscles relaxed, and his grip on the side of the crib went from white-knuckled to hardly a grip at all, his hand resting easily against it. Letting go and turning slowly around to face her, he said softly, "I still don't understand. I don't understand how he could do it."

So that was it. He'd had the nightmare again. The same one he'd had off and on since the children were born. She put her hand up to his face, running her fingers lightly across the scars around his left eye. "I don't either," she said softly.

He brought his hand up to meet hers, wrapping it gently around her fingers. "What if I . . ."

She cut him off. "You won't."

"But what if . . ."

"I wouldn't let you."

A half smile wormed its way onto Zuko's face. "I suppose if anyone can keep me sane, it's the woman who reads my thoughts."

"And the one who loves you," she added softly, leaning forward to kiss him. His lips felt warm and familiar against hers, in spite of the brevity of the kiss. Resting her head between his neck and his shoulder, she yawned widely. "You ready to go back to bed?"

He kissed her forehead in reply. "I guess so." She kissed him one more time, their lips lingering together for a long moment, before turning back to the hard work of getting anywhere with the baby inside throwing everything out of whack. Fingers intertwined, they walked down the hall in loving silence, the door of the nursery shut gently behind them.

Once they were back in bed, she rearranged herself eight times, finding a comfortable position a bit faster than usual while Zuko stared thoughtfully in her direction, taking her hand once she'd lain still for a while. "It was different this time, you know," he said softly. She raised an eyebrow. He continued. "The beginning was the same. My agni-kai with my father. I begged him not to hurt me, but he pulled his hand back, and then it shifted and I was my father, and before I could stop my arm, the kids were on fire."

He shuddered so hard she could feel it from her side of the bed and she squeezed his hand supportively, not wanting to move from the comfortable spot she'd managed to find in the bed. "So what was different?" she asked.

Zuko kissed her hand again, softly. "This time, there were three of them." He smiled. "I think we're gonna have another boy."

She smiled back. A boy would be nice. "We'll name him after your uncle, then. Iroh's a good, strong name."

He sighed happily. "Maybe." Then they slowly drifted off to sleep, still holding hands.


End file.
